The Shadow's Ward

by Eric Angers

  Then they passed Fort Gale, a man made structure built on the large island in the middle of the outer part of the bay in the time before the Judgement. A defensive tower and lighthouse reached up to the heavens and was once the tallest man made structure known to exist. High walls surrounded it, coiling around the island like a dragon’s tail, the merlons serving as the scaled spine. It was the combination of this fort, lined with ballista, and the Gale Cliffs, that made the Northlands the only unassailable location on the coast when the hordes invaded.

  “You killed them, didn’t you?” Norgaard asked, breaking the silence.

  With the sails now fully unfurled, Vastian’s flagship lurched ahead at speed, a chill mist spraying up onto the bow. It was refreshing, after all those months spent in Asunder. Norgaard was certain his master knew to who he was referring, and awaited the answer.

  Vastian looked down, in an apparent act of shame. “Yes. All of them.”

  “You don’t seem proud of it. Are you not used to things like that?”

  “I’m not. Not that,” he said, looking Norgaard in the eyes. “I can still remember it like it was yesterday, Norgaard. I can smell the blood, the smoke, the charred flesh. I didn’t know any of them, I killed without knowing who was involved and who wasn’t. Vengeance was my only motive, and what I did there.. I take no pride in it.” Vastian shuddered and closed his eyes.

  “What about the others. The contracts?” Norgaard asked.

  “Not a shred of remorse, guilt, and nothing but pride,” Vastian replied without hesitation, a telling smile spreading across his face.

  “Is this why you have been holding back in training me? The real reason?” Norgaard asked.

  “I didn’t want you to become me. Mine is a path not easily tread, and less easily altered once you’ve begun.”

  Norgaard nodded, seeming to understand. “And you are retired?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll stay and finish my training with you.”

  His master paused as if in thought then asked, “You’re already aboard my ship and out to sea. What if I had said I was still working for them?”

  “I was going to take my free trip to Phelandir and hope you didn’t kill me.” Norgaard replied, grinning.

  Vastian chuckled and left him there with the wind and the waves. Norgaard had no intention of leaving, there was so much left to learn from this man, and, he suspected, of him.

  Chapter XVII.

  Vastian

  It was going to be a long journey from Asunder to Phelandir, though the Windrake would cut the time considerably. By land it could take two months or more, depending how hard you pressed, and by sea it was still over a month. But in Vastian’s flagship, built by the finest Phelandrite shipwrights money could buy, it would take only three weeks. He intended to keep his student busy on the deck, learning how to sail such a large vessel. All of the dodging, climbing, running and jumping would do him some good in many aspects of the thievery trade.

  For his part, Vastian would try to stay focused, but the nightmares were more frequent, the letter from Jaerr dragging out his old demons. I fear the worst, it had said. Those words evoked a deep and painful response from Vastian, and symbolized loss. Jaerr knew this, and would only have used it if he truly was in trouble. His old friend needed his help, badly enough to bring up the past to get his attention. Jaerr had never let Vastian down, so why was it he was trying so hard to let Jaerr down?

  Assassins almost never worked together, but the weight of this one job alone was too much of a burden for a single man. It was no more important a target than any other the Dead Men had contracted, however, this man was one of their own. He was a man of means and he had become a Dead Man many years before. When a contract was put in his hands that he could not abide, he killed the wrong man, and that made him the enemy.

  He knew what was coming, had known he was throwing his life away, but it did not stop him from preparing. Hiring as many guards as he could, he had set up a rotation to stay protected twenty four hours a day, hidden deep within a compound he had designed himself. It was a training ground he often referred to as ‘assassin proof.’ No way in, no way out, not without being seen and an easy target for crossbowmen. Sheer walls with not enough hand holds and no discernable entry meant even with the special skills of stealth one might have, there was no point in getting close. How the contract had come across this much information on a man only two others should have known anything about was a mystery to both Vastian and Jaerr, but what was not a mystery was that this would be their hardest kill yet.

  With only a week to scout and prepare, they both felt ill-equipped to deal with such a well trained and well dug in foe, but it was their job, and given the reputations of ‘V’ and ‘9’ the Brotherhood had chosen very deliberately who to give the contract to. They would want no wasted attempts.

  “Those walls aren’t scalable, Vas,” Jaerr had told him as they surveyed the grounds yet again. This time, however, they would be going in, prepared or not.

  “I see that,” Vastian said, cursing the engineer that had designed such a fortress. An impossibly simple circular outer wall with a twenty degree incline and a smooth stone surface. The guards did not even have to shoot, merely pour burning oil down the sides. “If we cannot climb the wall, then we must simply use the gate.”

  “Easier said than done, there is no gate. That wall is smooth the whole way round. Probably use ladders to get in.”

  There was no way they could even approach the wall to climb it or put a ladder up, not with all that open ground surrounding the fort. Vastian briefly entertained the idea of bringing a catapult. Briefly. Entertaining though the idea was, he realized the more likely outcome was to over or undershoot the wall dying painfully than landing deftly upon the battlements and taking the fortress by himself. However, when it was all over, he would have to talk to Jaerr about telling it that way.

  “I bet a bird could drop us in there, or a worm tunnel us in,” he said and he worked his mind backwards over what he just said. “That’s how they get in, Jaerr, there’s a damned tunnel.”

  Jaerr grasped the idea as quickly. “Of course. They have to get food and materials in somehow, and they’re not bringing them over the wall. That’s our way in.”

  “It will be guarded,” Vastian said.

  “Yes.” Jaerr responded, drawing a knife, careful to scrape the sheath for effect.

  “They will have crossbows.”

  “We have these,” Jaerr said, tapping his throwing knives with the end of his blade.

  “They will be ready.”

  “Yes, and they do not realize that they have to contend with me,” his friend replied, setting off at a run in search of tracks.

  Vastian fell in easily beside him, “Don’t forget, Jaerr, there’s always someone better. This very well might be your last contract.”

  Jaerr turned his head to look over at Vastian and smirked at the last comment. A burst of speed allowed him to pull away from Vastian as they circled the fortress at a distance. There would not be much of a sign this close to the compound, but there would be enough for either Jaerr or Vas to pick up. An assassin’s senses could be nearly superhuman, at least to outsiders. For them, it was just years of training. Vastian detected a subtle play of shadows over the ground coming away from the walls of the central complex a few hundred yards ahead.

  “Do you see it yet, Vas?” Jaerr called out, looking back. Vastian nodded and they raced on, never coming close enough to the walls to be of any concern to the multitude of security manning them. When they reached the imperfection they turned, running along what seemed to be a path, imperceptible to most, but for Vastian and Jaerr, they could even feel the difference in their footfalls. There was something beneath them.

  “It leads west. There are cliffs a few miles out.” Vastian said to his partner.

  “Yeah, the Murder Cliffs, that’s about ten miles. Pretty far for an entrance.”

  “That’s why we never
noticed before.”

  So they ran west to the Murder Cliffs, so named for the many supposed bodies found at the bottom. Whether from some long forgotten battle, or just a good place to drop a body, it truly no longer mattered. The name was in the people’s memories, and it was scrawled on every local map, which they studied prior to their attempt. They covered the distance in little more than an hour, neither man laboring in their breathing or showing signs of fatigue.

  The cliffs were high, perhaps a thousand feet nearly straight down to the flat ground near the river. It was jagged, making for good hand holds, but any fall would be death. Neither assassin was a stranger to climbing, beginning the descent without hesitation. Nearly halfway down, they noticed the road and the beginning of a railway that ran into the rock. There were no guards. As if reading his mind, Jaerr said, “They’ll be inside.” Vastian nodded and the two continued to the bottom. No one would be stupid enough to climb the murder cliffs, maybe up, but not down, never down. In this way, it was a natural fortification for the entrance of the tunnel. The guards within would be shrouded in shadow and be more able to see approaching intruders than intruders would be able to see them. Perched atop the wooden support beams on the entrance, Vastian was aware of this disadvantage. Wordlessly he communicated to Jaerr with shadow forms. Eyes closed. Two or three targets. Kill.

  Then, on a silent count of three, the two closed their eyes and swung from the beam into the mouth of the tunnel. The surprise of the guards was audible, with the rustling of chain armor giving away their positions. There were two, and possibly a third further away. Crossbows thukked and bolts cut the air. Neither assassin dodged from their course, counting on the surprise to keep their opponents aim shaky. Having enough sound to mark them out, four blades spun end over end, two from each assassin. Jaerr’s struck home in his man’s chest first, then Vastian’s, only a second behind. The guards collapsed, blood slowly seeped from the wounds.

  “Mine hit first,” Jaerr said, keeping his eyes held shut. Vastian loosed one more knife down the tunnel before he turned on his friend. They heard the distant crumple of a third man. “But I got two,” Vastian countered.

  Then their eyes opened and both shot down the tunnel, grabbing their knives on the way, just ten miles at a steady incline to go before the real test. The way up was somewhat more eventful than the way across the open plain had been. Various workers or rotating guard shifts moved about the tunnel and had to be eliminated. There was no choice, and even had there been a choice, neither man would have chosen any other course than killing. Every man or any man could be the one to end any other man’s life, including Vastian’s own and every death was one less to worry about. Life was a never ending competition and the winner got to die when he was old and gray and had his fill. These men just hadn’t bothered to train hard enough for it.

  There was a surprising lack of traps in the tunnel, probably because it was frequented by the common laborers and militia, but still there should have been a few. Maybe the man was not a fan of the art, or maybe just not so good at it. Thoughts of traps and the mark faded as a distant pinprick of light grew steadily while they trotted on. The light was not the bright white of the morning or noon, but the orange of approaching dusk. The day was getting away from them while they cleaned out the tunnel. Vastian slowed and his brother fell in beside him, hands checking his equipment. "We must take care here, Jaerr, it's wide open out there and they will be all around us." Vastian warned, but Jaerr being Jaerr, he laughed it off.

  "Not a man among them is worthy enough to take out one of us. Well, maybe you, but definitely not me. What's your count? I'm at twelve."

  "Thirteen. Try to remember, they don't have to be worthy to be lucky. Any steel from any hand can pierce you just as deadly as if it were from mine."

  Jaerr simply rushed onward. Vastian was close behind, not to be left behind or outdone. The inside of the fortress was as he had expected. The circular outer wall sloped at a sharp angle to the sandy ground. Ladders were spaced evenly along it for the militia to man the walkway on top. A conical structure squatted in the center of the grounds; it appeared to be the only building of any kind. A wooden spiral scaffold system ran the height of it, five stories tall from his estimation. And everywhere there were crossbows, bloody crossbows in the hands of every man. Apparently these militiamen were well trained, expecting intruders of their sort; the first volley came with little delay. Jaerr leapt and Vastian sprinted forward at the conical structure. Darts concealed within Vastian’s shirt were retrieved and thrown in a single motion, knives then filled his hands, one between each finger. Before the darts stung their victim in the throat, two knives were away. Jaerr had caught up, the faster of the two, and had unleashed his own deadly attack on two men scrambling to reload their crossbows.

  “Down!” Vastian snapped, and Jaerr obeyed without hesitation, skidding on one knee, tucking his head into his chest. Vastian launched himself off of his friend’s shoulder with all the grace of a jungle cat, pouncing on the second story of the scaffold. His brother had lost little momentum and exploded back up and forward while a new flight of bolts struck the ground where he had been. Running up the support beam he launched into a flip and twisted to come down facing the way he had come.

  “I have the wall, meet at the entrance!” Jaerr shouted, racing to meet his enemy.

  Vastian chose to take his encounter slow and methodical.. this time. His four remaining throwing knives fanned out in his left hand and for use in close quarters he drew a favorite yet seldom used weapon: his modified side-sword. Similar in look and style to a rapier it was heavier construction and shorter, bladed on both sides with a sharp thrusting tip. His was cut down further in length and had a few surprises in the grip. He paced forward with utter confidence, his ice blue eyes demanding confrontation. Click. Trigger. Steel flashed and a bolt fell harmlessly. The shot came from below, he would be dealt with later. Rounding the scaffold two men waited, leveling crossbows in his direction. When they saw the slender blonde man walking, sword held low, seemingly in no guard whatsoever, and bladed hand held high they backpedaled. Click. Thuk. Turn. His torso twisted back and right. Click. Thuk. Left hand swatted through the air and one of the knives caught the bolt’s tail. It struck his shoulder, on its side, before flipping end over end to the ground. He kept walking. He decided to attack the one on the right, and he decided to name him, since there was no time for introductions, ‘Tim.’ The two drew swords, short, probably too short. Vastian struck first, with a high feint, which one promptly blocked. But Vastian’s sword bounced from the block and whipped around, slashing into the poor fool’s neck. Involuntarily, he reached up to the wound catching the blood as it began to gush. During this strike the other poor sod, Vastian decided to call him ‘Riv,’ thrust at the assassin’s side, earning a slash on the face from two of his four knives while he stepped in at an angle from the attack. Now Vastian was between them, probably not the best place for most, but he was him, and they were injured. Moving through to the space behind them he turned and faced ‘Riv’ and ‘Tim’. They were each holding their cuts, not even deep ones, with their off hands and keeping a mid guard with their sword arms. With a quick look to each other, they screamed and lunged at Vastian, raising their swords high in an overhead slash. All that training this militia seemed to have, and for what? To throw it all out the moment they were confronted? He threw his forearm up and took both blows simultaneously with a muffled metal tink. His sword then worked effortlessly underneath, opening ‘Riv’s’ stomach first, then repeatedly jabbing in and out of ‘Tim’s’ chest like a pit viper. Strikes were lightning fast, perhaps two inches deep, each of them, and likely the most painful experience the man ever felt. When ‘Tim’s’ sword finally fell to his side, Vastian had mercy and ran him through. Then, with side-sword still sheathed in the dead man he pulled him to the side, absorbing a crossbow bolt with ‘Tim’s’ body. Withdrawing his sword, Vastian turned and allowed ‘Tim’ to fall away like a stone.

>   His slow procession continued around the scaffold, now and again glancing at the outer walls where he could spy Jaerr dashing along the top, cutting down enemies in a frenzy. He was fast, faster than anyone else Vastian had seen. And he was younger, still time to grow muscles, and his mind. Speed was only a part of his lethality. Jaerr had what Vastian called ‘the precision of an ogre,’ which is to say he always hit something vital, but he hit everything around it too. This was, more often than not, extremely messy, something Vastian avoided if at all possible. These thoughts occurred to him while he fought, ascending the scaffold, man after man from the mark’s militia. Parry, jab, duck, stab. It was a slow motion practice arena for him. Each new man proved to present no more a threat to his existence than a practice dummy, though he regarded each one with the care he might going into a den of vipers. The combat itself felt practiced and routine, the adrenaline non-existent, but at no point would he put himself in the position to underestimate a man he did not know. He would let each prove to him his own incompetence. And they did so. Poor aim, shaking arms, sloppy thrusts, low guard when they should be high, high guard when they should be mid. Each was dispatched with no more than a dodge, block, or parry and a quick finishing strike. Finally, Vastian rounded the final corner and reached the roof. No entrance, just an archer taking aim at Jaerr who was momentarily stationary while wrestling two men on the wall. There was little time. Vastian whipped his left wrist and released one of his knives at the archer. His bow was fully drawn, awaiting the right moment to release, and the blade twinkled in the orange sun as it spun toward its mark. The archer loosed and his arrow flew not more than ten feet, the tension cut from his string by the knife. Vastian hesitated momentarily, shrugged, then pounced.